I like you, League.

But you don't have my heart any more.

You held steady for a long time. The very first match I played was a custom match titled new players only, little did I know the enemy Garen and Xin Zhao were level 30s who proceeded to wipe the floor with my partner and me. I was in awe of Xin Zhao - how quickly he was on my sad scarecrow face; I wanted to be that good.

Your lore was deeper than many of the other games I'd played. The League's judgement provided so much insight to champions, it made them feel human. When Lux came out, my first response was to read everything about her, as I had every other champion. Her story held a lot of meaning to me; I too had big names to live up to, and was forced into a life I didn't want. I gravitated toward her playstyle, her kit, her entire being... I had my found my first main.

Lux remains a favorite pick, but I branched out as all players must. Many other champions were released, some seemed a little unfair at launch, but more often than not you tweaked them a little bit, just enough to make things fun for other champions too. Zed happened. This was the first time a champion truly seemed to have huge advantages with no trade offs. Nothing you did to him really took the edge off of exactly how fun it wasn't to play against a Zed, and that was okay, because I still loved you so much that I could see past a single problem.

But a single problem became many - with every new champion release it felt like more and more was being squeezed into their kits. More utility, more mobility, more damage, and the balance was getting out of whack. The subtle tweaks to adjust champions shifted to a tendency to take out their knees, a balancing effort that causes the top champions to ebb and flow with every patch. If you were lucky, your favorites got a patch in the spotlight, otherwise we hoped for middle ground. A few champions saw large reworks, and among them were a few of my favorites, notably Karma. She was defended to the death, but all cries fell on deaf ears, it hurt, but it was manageable.

Still yet, I loved you. Through all of this, your lore held everything together firmly, everyone and everything was there for a reason. Until it didn't. Suddenly everything that made the game feel real, made it alive, was wrong. At first it was just a single Riot post, I hoped it wasn't true. Then it was announced, and for the first time, you'd truly broken a part of me that loved this game. I stopped playing for a few months then, I couldn't really process the thought that such a drastic change could go through. I came back. I wasn't determined to quit, I just needed time to get over the blow that had been dealt, and you promised you were working on new lore that would be out soon.

As all of this happened, e-sports picked up steam. It was never really my thing, but I understood why others might enjoy watching or even participating. What I didn't understand is why game balance should be dictated by e-sports. The game was clearly warping around what worked in e-sports - what was strong, what was weak, what strategies worked, and what generated the most hype. Balance now meant E-sports balance, the casual approach didn't seem to matter any more.

But that didn't matter, there was still some parts of you left to love. That promise of lore came true, lore events started happening, and they were pretty cool. Except, they didn't offer anything except being pretty cool. You'd exchanged biographies for moments in the lives of X Champion. Reading through the stories is awesome, but I'm not left feeling like I know champions any more, and that never really came back.

League of Legends felt like a world. Seeing it as it is now, compared to what it was, hurts. It's not a world any more, it's a game, a game warping to whatever gets the most revenue.

I won't give my heart to a game, Riot. I hope we can still be friends, but I don't love you any more.